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Today we had Stage 1 of the Schools Appeal. There were 17 appeals, one no-show, one woman left in a  strop after about 30 minutes. Remaining were evenly split – the silent over-awed half, and the vociferously state-our-case half (guess which we were in?). LEA woman was so unprepared I almost felt sorry for her (almost) – talk about woolly. She just kept repeating “well, I have spoken to the head, and he says there is no more room”.

But she didn’t know actual square metre-age of teaching space, changes that had been made to accommodate the high intake in previous years, the absenteeism rate… not even convinced she had actually visited the school. Two hours straight she was being interrogated by parents and panel.

The upshot was that despite the intake numbers being moved from 210 to 240 this year, the school COULD accommodate more – so we moved on to Stage 2. The personal appeal, where we have to convince the panel that it really is in no.1′s best interests to attend this particular school.

That’s on Wednesday.

Remember all the to-ing and fro-ing over which school?

We were feeling fairly confident in our choice – is a fair distance away (as opposed to school right on doorstep) but is a low intake year, so most should get first choice. But…

He wasn’t offered :(

Have spent a couple of weeks worrying that he’ll be in no way ready for the extended day the travelling would have involved anyway… But the first choice was an amazing school with fabulous opportunities. And now I feel like a pushy parent for being disappointed he didn’t get in to the ‘right’ school. The one local to us is perfectly good, small, personal, friendly and everything he needs right now. – is just very small (120 year group) and therefore lacks some of the bigger opportunities. The the bus-ride-away big school had amazing opportunities, and is everything he will  need in about a years time when he’s back to full power. And he was in love with the idea of going there.

No.1 is crushed.

To the point that even being able to go to school with his bestest mate in all the world is no compensation for missing out on going to the Chosen School. He’s asked us to appeal, which I guess we will, but goes against the grain to be all competitive-parent-do-the-RIGHT-school thing.

Sigh.

Anyhoo. Just thought I’d share.